Tag: israel

How Does Israel Justify Genocide? It Starts in the Schools

In The Black Image in the White Mind, historian George M. Frederickson writes, “In the years immediately before and after 1800, white Americans often revealed by their words and actions that they viewed [Black people] as a permanently alien and unassimilable element of the population.” Within the context of white American domination, anti-Black racist stereotypes framed Black people as inherently unfit, innately problematic and divorced from the category of the human, a category that is synonymous with whiteness.

The French-Tunisian scholar Albert Memmi, in The Colonizer and the Colonized, understood these racist rationalizations as a series of negations, observing: “The colonized is not this, is not that. [They are] never considered in a positive light; or if [they are], the quality which is conceded is the result of a psychological or ethical failing.” Within these racist binary regimes, it is necessary that a specific group functions as “other.”

Throughout the world, there are groups that are deemed “other,” and their “otherness” is imposed by those who control dominant forms of discourse — those who have the representational power to demean, to marginalize and demonize. Historically, schools and religious institutions have helped to underwrite such dehumanizing discourse.

Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a retired lecturer in language education at Hebrew University and at the David Yellin Academic College in Jerusalem, and the author of several books. In this exclusive interview, she discusses how Israeli schoolbooks (and by extension, Israeli schools) powerfully frame anti-Palestinian discourse and inculcate Israeli children with suspicion, fear and hatred of Palestinians. Peled-Elhanan’s work provides a powerful analysis of the relationship between Israeli state pedagogical power and racist, anti-Palestinian ideology.

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Israel seeks bill to allow police to probe ‘incitement to terrorism’ without approval

A new bill advancing through the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee would allow Israel Police to investigate suspected incitement to terrorism without needing approval from the State Attorney’s Office.

According to the Times of Israel, this proposal has raised alarms among civil rights groups and opposition MKs, who argue it could limit free speech.

Currently, such investigations require State Attorney approval to prevent overly broad interpretations of the law that could infringe on free expression. In July, State Attorney Amit Aisman revealed that police had initiated several investigations into incitement or speech-related offences without proper authorisation, bypassing his office’s directives.

Introduced by far-right MK Limor Son Har Melech, of the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit Party, the new clause in the legislation is part of a broader bill that aims to tighten restrictions on incitement, extending the ban to include praise for individuals who commit terrorist acts, not just the acts themselves, reported the Times of Israel. 

If enacted, the law would enable police to act on formal complaints “or in any other manner.”

The bill passed its first reading in the Knesset in July, but Son Har Melech is now pushing for even stricter measures. A committee hearing on the bill, scheduled for today, was postponed due to scheduling conflicts with officials from the State Attorney’s Office and the National Security Ministry. The hearing is expected to be rescheduled soon.

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Mossad Planted Bombs in 5,000 Hezbollah Pagers Months Before Deadly Detonations: Report

Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency has been accused of planting explosives in 5,000 pagers imported by Hezbollah, setting the stage for devastating detonations across Lebanon, according to Reuters, citing a senior Lebanese security source.

The carefully orchestrated attack targeted Hezbollah terrorists, killing at least 11 people, and more than 4,000 have been injured, including the Iranian envoy to Beirut, marking the “biggest security breach” the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror network has faced since its ongoing war with Israel began.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini, has suffered severe injuries and has lost one eye. The question now is how an ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran has a Hezbollah pager.

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Israel’s conduct in the war will consume us all

Hamas terrorists were responsible for the deaths of 1,139 Israelis – mostly civilians – on October 7, 2023. The Israeli government was fully within its rights to bring the terrorists to justice.

But nearing the one-year mark of Israel’s resultant war against Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may now be an impediment to peace rather than providing a path to it.

No one can question Israel’s right to seek justice for Hamas’s bloody massacre on 10/7 and few challenge Washington for providing military support to Israel as it seeks to punish Hamas. Yet it is entirely reasonable to question how Israel is conducting its operations, especially if it becomes apparent the Israeli government pursues a course of action that is ineffective — or worse — is making Israel less secure.

I have argued, as far back as November of last year on CNN that Netanyahu has been using military power to pursue a political objective that cannot succeed: the total elimination of Hamas. The reason is simple: one cannot kill an idea with bombs and bullets.

Israel unequivocally has the single most powerful military in the Middle East. In the aftermath of suffering a terrorist attack that caused large scale civilian casualties, it is an understandable and seductive temptation to use that military power to crush one’s enemy. But using a hammer to do a job more suited to a surgeon’s knife was always going to produce results that were anywhere from ineffective to outright self-defeating.

The task facing the Israeli government following 10/7 was monumental: how to bring justice to the political and military force of Hamas (numbering somewhere around 30,000 fighters) who were interwoven within a civilian population of approximately 2.3 million? Taking no action was never an option, so the only question was how best to conduct lethal military operations to justly degrade Hamas.

Doing the job right would have been costly to the Israeli Defense Forces in terms of both time and troops lost. Generally, the IDF could have cut the Gaza strip into sections, isolating one from the rest. They could have screened and then temporarily relocated all the civilians into other secured areas, and then methodically moved through the cordoned area to either capture or kill all the fighters. Once an area was cleared, the civilian residents could have returned, and the IDF would move to the next cordoned area.

Collateral damage would have resulted everywhere Hamas fighters chose to stand and fight, but it would have been limited. Once an area had been cleansed of terrorists, the area would be secured by other troops to limit other Hamas fighters from returning. Meanwhile the civilian population would then be allowed to return and have a safe place to live.

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Hezbollah’s Exploding Pagers Could Be As Monumental A Cyber-Espionage Operation As Stuxnet

In an extraordinary development in the Middle East conflict, thousands of Hezbollah members have been injured and at least three people were killed after pagers that the militants used exploded simultaneously today. While exactly how this occurred remains unclear, it could very well be a monumental cyber attack that could have widespread implications far beyond the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Regardless, it should be a wake-up call.

While no one has so far taken responsibility, Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the attack. A source from the group said that they expect the attack may have been launched in response to an alleged assassination attempt by the Lebanese militant group on a former senior Israeli security official. The existence of that plot was only revealed today by Israel’s Shin Bet security agency.

At this stage, the total number of individuals killed or injured by the pager blasts is unclear. Hezbollah has confirmed the deaths of at least three people, including two of its fighters. 

At the time of writing, at least nine people have died and approximately 2,800 have been wounded, according to Lebanon’s Minister of Health Firas Abiad. Of the injured, 170 at least are also said to be in critical condition.

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Hezbollah hit by a wave of exploding pagers in Lebanon and Syria. At least 9 dead, hundreds injured

Pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded near simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday, killing at least nine people – including an 8-year-old girl — and wounding several thousand, officials said. They blamed Israel in what appeared to be a sophisticated, remote attack.

Among those wounded was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon. The mysterious incident came amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which have exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.

The pagers that exploded had been newly acquired by Hezbollah after the group’s leader ordered members to stop using cell phones, warning they could be tracked by Israeli intelligence. A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press the pagers were a new brand the group had not used before.

At about 3:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, pagers started heating up and then exploding in the pockets and hands of those carrying them — particularly in a southern Beirut suburb and the Beqaa region of eastern Lebanon where Hezbollah has a strong presence, and in Damascus, where several Hezbollah members were wounded, Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official said. The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.

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Israeli Torture Chambers Aren’t New. They Provoked October 7

For many years I lived just up the road from Megiddo prison in northern Israel, where new film of Israeli guards torturing Palestinians en masse has been published by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. I drove past Megiddo prison on hundreds of occasions. Over time I came to barely notice the squat grey buildings, surrounded by watch towers and razor wire.

There are several large prisons like Megiddo in Israel’s north. It is where Palestinians end up after they have been seized from their homes, often in the middle of the night. Israel, and the western media, say these Palestinians have been “arrested”, as though Israel is enforcing some kind of legitimate legal procedure over oppressed subjects – or rather objects – of its occupation. In truth, these Palestinians have been kidnapped.

The prisons are invariably located close to major roads in Israel, presumably because Israelis find it reassuring to know Palestinians are being locked up in such large numbers. (As an aside, I should mention that transferring prisoners out of occupied territory into the occupier’s territory is a war crime. But let that pass.)

Even before the mass round-ups of the past 11 months, the Palestinian Authority estimated that 800,000 Palestinians – or 40 per cent of the male population – had spent time in an Israeli prison. Many had never been charged with any crime and had never received a trial. Not that that would make any difference – the conviction rate of Palestinians in Israel’s military courts is near 100 per cent. There is no such thing as an innocent Palestinian, it seems.

Rather, imprisonment is a kind of terrifying rite of passage that has been endured by generations of Palestinians, one required of them by the bureaucracy managing Israel’s apartheid-occupation system.

Torture, even of children, has been routine in these prisons since the occupation began nearly 60 years ago, as Israeli human rights groups have been regularly documenting.

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The Threats are Flying! Ukraine Threatens Iran, THEN . . . Israel Threatens . . . RUSSIA!

The issue of long-range weapons for use in attacking interior, pre-war Russia, is developing into a very big – and dangerous – situation.  Threats are being hurled back and forth, very publicly.

It all began when word came out early last week, that the U.S. was “considering” allowing Ukraine to use US-supplied weapons, to attack deep interior, pre-war, Russia.

The Russians sent explicit, written warnings to the US which said “If Ukraine uses long-range weapons to attack interior Russia, it will affect both sides of the Atlantic.” (Story Here) 

A few days later, at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany,  word leaked that the question of Ukraine using NATO (West) Supplied weapons to strike deep inside Russia was being discussed!

Russia’s Ambassador to The United States, Anatoly Antonov, then repeated publicly, his government’s written warning: “If Ukraine uses long-range weapons to attack inside Russia, it will affect both sides of the Atlantic.”

Late this past week, word leaked from US and UK Intelligence Agencies claiming Russia had taken delivery of “hundreds” of IRANIAN-MADE FATH-360, short-range ballistic missiles, for Russia to use against Ukraine.   This revelation set off a firestorm of threats.

Saturday, The Defense Ministry of Ukraine (which can’t even adequately defend their own land) said that “If Russia uses Iranian Missiles to target Ukrainian Civilians, then their Response against Iran will be Severe.”   Yes, you read that correctly, Ukraine just threatened Iran!

But the really big development took place today, from Israel.   Israel announced that If Iran supplies missiles for Russia to use in attacking Ukraine, then Israel will supply “long range precision missiles to Ukraine, to strike Russia.”   Yes, you read that correctly; Israel just threatened the Russians.

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Undebatable: What Harris and Trump Could Not Say About Israel and Gaza

Kamala Harris won the debate. People being bombed in Gaza did not.

The banner headline across the top of the New York Times home page – “Harris Puts Trump on Defensive in Fierce Debate” – was accurate enough. But despite the good news for people understandably eager for Trump to be defeated, the Harris debate performance was a moral and political tragedy.

In Gaza “now an estimated 40,000 Palestinians are dead,” an ABC News moderator said. “Nearly 100 hostages remain… President Biden has not been able to break through the stalemate. How would you do it?”

Vice President Harris replied with her standard wording: “Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. Because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Children, mothers. What we know is that this war must end. It must when, end immediately, and the way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal and we need the hostages out.”

“End immediately”? Anyone who isn’t in fantasyland knows that the only way to soon end the slaughter of Palestinian civilians would be for the U.S. government – the overwhelmingly biggest supplier of Israel’s armaments – to stop sending weapons to Israel.

Meanwhile, a pivot to advocating for a cutoff of weapons to Israel would help Harris win the presidency. After the debate, the Institute for Middle East Understanding pointed out that the need to halt the weapons is not only moral and legal – it’s also smart politics. Polls are clear that most Americans want to stop arming Israel. In swing states, polling has found that a large number of voters say they’d be more likely to cast a ballot for Harris if she would support a halt.

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New Lebanon War Kicks Off As IDF Pounds Hezbollah Positions Overnight

The Israeli Defense Force struck at least 16 targets overnight against Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon, as the focus of The Jewish State turns from Gaza to the north of the country.

In four different areas in southern Lebanon: the IDF attacked about 30 launchers and military infrastructure of the terrorist organization Hezbollah that posed a threat to the citizens of the State of Israel, reported the IDF press office.

Air Force fighter jets attacked during the night in the areas of Al Jabin, A-Nakura, Deir Sirin and Zabkin in southern Lebanon, about 30 launchers and military infrastructures of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which posed a threat to the citizens of the State of Israel.

Also, IDF forces attacked with artillery in the A-Dahira area in southern Lebanon.

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